Wellington, pre tests and tutors

[ExLondonite]

I think I've been a bit naive - I had no idea that extra tutoring, outside of school hours was so prevalent. I've just come back from half term with a group of friends from the London school my children used to go to and discovered that Maths, English and pre-test tutors for Wellington (if they don't get into Eton or a London day school) etc is de rigeur. So now I'm asking myself whether I should do the same for my son who is doing the pre-test this September...it galls me slightly that we're at a private school( now outside of London) but I almost feel obliged to hire someone who has access to CAT online tests just incase my DS doesn't get in! Is the Wellington pre-test quite rigorous? I know people say you can't prepare for it, but having talked to some of the most rated tutoring agencies who don't come as far as Haslemere - does the world stop at the M25?! - it seems that's exactly what they do. I am not going to get angsty about this, but really?! This is all sounding a little crazy.

I have never heard of anyone at a prep having tutoring for Wellington. Our local prep sends 6 or 7 a year there.

I agree, none of the children we have sent to Wellington in recent years had tutors.

Perhaps this is a knee jerk reaction to the pass rate being upped/the academic profile being highlighted?

No tutoring for Wellington here in SW London, in fact as far as I can gather very little pre-test tutoring at all. Lots of tutoring for 11 plus but I only know of one child in year 5 who is being tutored endlessly for the very academic London Day School pre tests in year 6. I expect there will be a bit of verbal reasoning revision at home over the summer hols but given that most schools who start at 13 rely heavily on the current prep heads report, I think formal tutoring is throwing money down the drain. The head's report has to give predicted Common Entrance grades and with head's keen to maintain their reputations I suspect grade inflation is probably limited. I also beleive the pre-tests are generally designed to test ability rather than knowledge and of course the school interviewer should be able to discover fairly quickly if said boy has been prepped to the enth degree. Don't see the point of prepping said child to get into a school after which they struggle academically and are plain miserable. Relation of mine was prepped heavily for 11 plus and has gone down 2 sets in maths in the following 3 years.

We didn't tutor for the pre test for either Winchester or St Pauls and only tutored for the actual Latin entrance exam on discovering that my DS's latin teacher was a charming chap but didn't actually know any Latin.
My DS by the way was at a very well regarded non pushy non selective prep. So if I was you I wouldn't worry and I definitely wouldn't worry if its for Wellington.

Why don't you do DIY with Bond etc, IMO no magic to having paid tutoring at 11+, it also depends on how much your prep school prepares for said senior school pre-tests. But i plan DIY and rely also on prep school to prepare for interviews etc. I work full time in a professional career but have managed to do DIY maths using Bond mostly in holidays and also have done some limited selective parts of Galore Park maths and some misc senior school/other bookshop maths 11+ papers with DS and he is right at top of top set at large prep school without one single hour of outside tutoring or Kumon etc. so it gave me confidence to think can be done without shelling out more $$$ for private tutor on top of prep school fees ...you just need to put in the time,,,if you don't have the time to do DIY then sure get a tutor...but don't get paranoid about not getting one if you can do DIY. Also focus on doing well on prep school internal exams also so your headmaster can feel confident of predicting good academics for your child. Welllington is also not as high as high a bar in CE (70% common entrance) as some others...I think they focus also on drama and sports etc. not just academics. For other super selectives, assuming you get past their 11+ pre-tests then 70% CE is a must.

Not sure where Wellington do set bar for CE...anyone know? Is it 65% average ? I know some schools want 70% average ...others want even higher ...70% in every paper is the highest bar I have heard of for CE ...then of course some senior schools have their own exams which are considerable more challenging than CE ...but as I have not got there yet with DS others will know more on this than i do

It's not all that hard to get 70% in CE for a slightly bright child or above, only problem is getting 70% on the level 3 paper in Maths which is harder to do, but then Wellington don't force you to take Level 3 like RGS do.

According to their very irritating website average 65%

happygardening I had a look too. They have completely redesigned their website and it is now virtually unnavigable! Maybe that is the intention.

65% isn't a particularly high bar, a reasonably bright DC should manage that.

DS's school are already setting past CE papers in their school exams in yr 6 and he is getting higher than 65% in most, and he is probably about average for his year.

Wellington also take those who don't get 65% if they have something else to offer the school, eg music, art, sports. Quite a few go from ds's school but I can't stand the head there so it won't be on our list.

Thanks for all the advice, I am going to do some online papers to get DS used to doing computer exams and then do a bit more when he takes his 13+ and pretest for Sevenoaks,which isn't until year 8. i'm sure things weren't as complicated when I went to school! X